The Spiritual Hierarchies

Schmidt Number: S-1982

On-line since: 16th August, 2005

LECTURE 10

Apart from the question put at the end of yesterday's lecture,
it would be within the scope of this course of lectures to explain
much more; but it is impossible to exhaust in ten lectures all there
is to be said about our worlds. Therefore, I beg you to allow me to
make yet a few observations before I touch on our question,
especially as these observations are connected with it.

The first observation I have to make is difficult, perhaps even
almost impossible of comprehension by the consciousness of the
present day; but it is good to know that something of the sort
exists. It is the question: in what way do these planetary formations
really disappear again? It is clear to you how development
spiritually proceeds: Beings arise to higher stages, and whilst they
are rising they have to forsake the old place of habitation which
afforded them for a time the possibility for developing certain
capacities which they otherwise could not have achieved. When, in the
course of evolution, that time approached which we call the Lemurian,
man had reached so far in his general development that he had already
repeated all that there was to be gained out of the Saturn, Sun and
Moon evolutions. He now appeared on the dwelling-place destined for
our earth-evolution, which had only just been formed. He developed
through the Lemurian and Atlantean times on into our times, and he
will continue to develop on into the future as we know — from
one incarnation to the other. But after a certain time that human
being will have to leave the earth, to forsake it, because it will
not have anything more to give him, and will afford him no more
possibilities of development. Now you might perhaps imagine that our
earth would become a sort of deserted rubbish-heap when man had left
it; you might compare it to a town which had been deserted by its
entire population. You know what such a town looks like after a short
time; it gradually turns into a mound of earth. We get an adequate
idea of this in seeing towns which have been given over to nature.
But it will not be so in the future of the earth. The following
consideration will give you an idea of what that future will be like:
what does such a genius, for instance, as Leonardo da Vinci or
Raphael, signify for the earthly development of men? What importance
for the earth's development, have those wonderful works of
Michelangelo or Raphael which are still to-day enjoyed by thousands
and thousands of people? Perhaps some of you have felt a certain
sadness looking at the ‘Last Supper’ by Leonardo da
Vinci, when you have asked yourselves, standing in front of that
wonderful work in Milan, how long it would still last? For one must
not forget that Goethe, in his first journey to Italy, still saw that
work of art in all its beauty and freshness as we cannot see it any
more. But, from the time of Goethe's youth to our time, this
work of art has so far perished as regards the external, material
world, that it calls forth in us feelings of sadness.* For people who
will live as late after us as we are now after Goethe, that picture
will not exist any more. So it is with everything men create upon
earth, with everything which is incarnated into physical matter upon
earth. In reality it is so also with the earth itself, and with the
creations of human thought. Put yourselves now in thought into that
time when the spiritualised men will have risen into higher spheres.
Thoughts in the sense of to-day — I do not mean scientific
thoughts, for these will entirely lose their importance in three or
four hundred years — but thoughts of men in general, as they
come forth from a human mind, have naturally no importance for the
higher worlds, but have it only for the earth. But when man shall
have left the earth, what will have happened to all his past
creations on earth, through all the hundreds and thousands of years
that are past?

The evolution of the individual is naturally the thing to be first
spiritually considered. Leonardo da Vinci has risen higher through
what he has achieved; that is his ascent. But we ask ourselves
whether the great thoughts, the great impulses, which great men have
imprinted on the substance of the earth, do not have any importance
for the future of the Earth? Will the future break and grind the
Earth into dust, and will all that man has made out of the earth
disappear together with its existence? You admire the Cathedral of
Cologne! † In a comparatively short time there will certainly
not be one stone of it lying on the other; but the fact that man once
expressed his thoughts in stone in this cathedral, will that have no
significance for the whole earth? We are now disregarding that which
man takes with him away from the earth, we are considering the earth
itself. We see that, in fact, a planet grows always smaller in the
course of its development. It contracts. That is the destiny of the
substance of planets; but it is not all, that is only something which
the physical eye and physical instruments can observe in the planets.
There is a further development of the material substance —
beyond that point.

Let us now consider this further development of matter, and with this
I am touching on what I said will perhaps be impossible for you to
understand with the comprehension of the present day. It is a fact
that the earth is continually contracting, hence matter tends towards
the centre from all sides. And now I say — be it understood
consciously, not only fully conscious of the law of the conservation
of force, but also fully conscious of facts known to every occultist
— I say: Matter draws together more and more towards a centre,
and the strange thing is that in that centre matter disappears.

Imagine that you have a piece of something which
contracts more and more towards its centre. In its centre it
disappears. It does not get pushed over to its other side, it
absolutely disappears into nothing in its own central point! So that
you can imagine to yourselves that, as the material parts contract
towards the centre, the whole of the earth will some day disappear in
that central point. But this is not all: in the same measure in which
it disappears in the central point, it reappears again in
the circumference. Out there in space it is coming back again. At one
point in space matter disappears and emerges again at another. Out
there it is coming forth anew. The substance disappears in one place
and from outside it returns again. But it returns in such a way that
it brings back with it all that the beings who have worked on the
planets have imprinted on its substance; naturally not in its present
form, but in a form which this transformation has given to it. In
this way you see the Cathedral of Cologne returning from the other
side, its material particles having disappeared in the centre.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, of that which has been accomplished on a
planet is ever lost, it all comes back again from the other side.

That which happened in the beginnings of our evolution, before the
Saturn development, we must place outside, beyond the Zodiac.
Primeval wisdom called it the Crystal Heaven, and in that crystal
heaven were deposed all the deeds of the Beings of a former
evolution. They formed, so to speak, the foundation on which the new
Beings began to create.

A we said before, all this is extremely difficult for the modern mind
to understand, because it is in the habit of considering matter only,
and because it is not in the habit of conceiving that outside of
three dimensional space matter can disappear and re-appear at another
place after it has passed through other dimensions. You cannot grasp
this so long as your ideas remain in the space of three dimensions;
for this goes beyond the three dimensions. Therefore, it cannot be
seen until it returns again from the other side into the space of
three dimensions. In the meantime, it is in other dimensions.

It is a thing which we have to grasp; for the conditions of our
world's origin have manifold connections, and something which
is to be found in some one place may often have a complicated
connection with something else which is in quite a different place
outside three dimensional space.

We have said that our planetary formation began with the ancient
Saturn, and it really did begin then. It then advanced to Jupiter.
When the whole creation of Jupiter began, all the Beings in the
surrounding space also took part in it as you know. But just as all
the Beings who are active within the whole expanse of our planetary
system are developing further, so also are the Beings outside our
system, those who are sending in their influence from surrounding
spaces. As some of the surrounding Beings withdrew, so did also some
of the Beings who were outside in universal spaces; some of these
also withdrew; and as Jupiter contracted, something was also
withdrawn by the Beings who retired, something which had nothing to
do with our evolution at all, but which along with the withdrawing
Beings formed first Uranus, and then Neptune during the Mars
development. The names of Uranus and Neptune were, of course, not
chosen to suit the subjects in the way the Ancients chose names;
although in the name Uranus some meaning still is left; it was given
when people still had some feeling for the meaning of names;
therefore, all that lies outside our circle was generically called
Uranus.

Thus we see that the two planets which our astronomers of the present
day consider as having the same significance as the other planets
stand on a totally different footing, and fundamentally speaking have
nothing to do with the creation of our world; they represent those
worlds which have come into existence because Beings who, during the
Saturn period, still had something to do with us, have withdrawn and
have found their places of habitation outside our world. We shall
gather other facts from this, for instance, that those planets have
retrograding moons, and so on.

Thus we have sketched the origin of our solar system and have asked
ourselves: What position has man towards those Beings of the higher
Hierarchies who, fundamentally speaking, were his human forefathers?
We can begin with the highest, the Seraphim, the Cherubim, the
Thrones, and in describing them, get a good idea of man. If we could
rise beyond the Seraphim, we should get into the realm of
the Divine Trinity. What is it then that the Seraphim, Cherubim,
Thrones have in particular, that is different from all the other
beings in the world? They have what is called ‘the direct sight
of GOD.’ That which man has to seek for
slowly and gradually, throughout his development, is theirs from the
beginning of all time. We men say, that we must start from our modern
standpoint to acquire ever greater powers of knowledge, of will,
etc.; thus we shall rise ever nearer and nearer to the Godhead,
Divinity will become ever more present to us. We say to
ourselves: We are developing upwards, towards something which is
still veiled from us, towards the Godhead. This is the difference
between the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones and men, that since the
beginning of our development these highest Beings have enjoyed the
direct sight of the Godhead, have been in the near presence of the
Divine Trinity. That whereunto men have to evolve has been theirs
from the very beginning.

Thus it is immensely important for us to know that these Beings came
into existence seeing God; that as they live, so also they are in the
sight of God.

All they do, all they achieve, they do through the vision they have
of God, God does it through them. They could not do otherwise, it
would be impossible for them to act otherwise than they do; for the
sight of God has such power, such an influence upon them, that with a
direct certainty, with immediate impulse they put into action, all
that they receive from the Godhead. Anything like deliberation,
judgment, consideration, does not exist in the sphere of those
Beings. For them, there only exists the sight of the commands of the
Godhead, the reception of the immediate impulse to put into action
that which they have seen. And they also behold the Godhead in its
original true form, they see the Godhead as it is. But they only see
themselves as those who fulfil the will and the wisdom of God. These
are the conditions of the highest Hierarchies.

When we descend to the next Hierarchy, to those Beings whom we call
the Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and of Form, we have to say that
they have not such direct vision of the Godhead, they do not see God
in His immediate aspect as He is, but in His revelations in the way
He — if I may express it so — reveals Himself through His
countenance. Certainly it is unmistakable for them that it is the
Godhead, they feel the immediate impulse to follow the revelations of
the Godhead, just as with the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. The
impulse is not so strong, but it still is a direct one. It would be
impossible for the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones to say that they
would not put into action that which they see prescribed for them, so
to speak, by the Godhead; that would be unthinkable because of their
nearness to the Godhead. But it would also be in a certain way quite
impossible for those Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and of Form to
undertake that which the Godhead Itself did not want them to
undertake.

Therefore, if development was to progress, something quite particular
had to come into action. We now touch on a point which is always
difficult for men to understand, even for those who have advanced to
a certain degree of the Mystery-Wisdom. In the ancient Mysteries they
tried to make it comprehensible in the following way: At a certain
stage of initiation into the ancient Mysteries, the neophyte was led
by hostile powers, who had a cruel and horrible appearance, and who
also enacted cruel and horrible deeds in the sight of the neophyte.
Those who performed these deeds were no other than masked priests,
masked sages. To bring about the necessary temptations and ordeals,
Priests had to disguise themselves in devilish shapes, as terrible
beings who performed the most terrific and the most abominable deeds
which the mind of man could ever imagine. What did this mean? To show
to the neophyte how far development could err from the right path,
the priest himself, under the guise of the evil-doer, had to
represent that evil before his eyes. He had to have the illusion that
evil itself stood before him, and only when the evil was unmasked did
he see the truth; then the illusion was taken away, and he knew he
had had to do with a trial. To make him strong, to arm him against
evil, it was represented to him in its most terrific aspect,
represented by the wise Priests themselves who certainly did not err
in truth. It was only a reflection of that which had really taken
place within the Cosmic development.

In the time between the Jupiter and the Mars development — if I
dare express myself in trivial words — a number of Beings from
the sphere of the Mights or Spirits of Motion were detached; they
were placed in such a manner within the course of evolution that,
instead of helping it onwards, they had to put
hindrance in its way. Thus the deeds of — if I may coin the
word — ‘adversely-commanded’ Mights were thrown
athwart the course of evolution. For the ruling world-powers of the
Hierarchies said to themselves: ‘Never could that arise which
has to arise if the way were always smooth. Greater things must take
place.’ Imagine that you have a car to push. You develop your
strength by pushing it. If heavy ballast is put into the car it will
be heavier to push, but you would develop greater strength. Suppose
the Godhead had let the world's evolution remain as it was, up
to the time just after the Jupiter evolution, men could have
certainly developed very well; but humanity could have become still
stronger if hindrance had been in its way. For the good of humanity,
certain Mights or Spirits of Motion had to receive adverse commands.
These were not evil at first, one need not consider them as evil
Powers, one might even say they sacrificed themselves by putting
obstacles into the way of development. Therefore, these Mights may be
called the gods of hindrance, of impediment, in the widest sense of
the word. They are the gods of the impediments and hindrances placed
in the way, on the high-road of development. And from that moment,
the possibility was given for all that was achieved in the future.
These ‘adversely-commanded’ Mights were not yet evil in
themselves; on the contrary, they were the great promoters of
development, promoting it through the storms they produced,
but they were the breeders of evil; for, out of the storms they
produced, evil gradually arose.

Naturally, the path of development of these ‘adversely-commanded’
Mights shaped itself quite differently from that of their brothers;
their action was quite different, and the result was that, during the
Moon-development, they became the tempters, the seducers, of those
beings we call Angels. The Angels were passing through their human
stage during the Moon development. There were Angel-men on the Moon
who, so to speak, looked at the way the hindrances
acted on development, and who said to themselves: ‘We can now
put ourselves in the way of conquering the hindrances, we can plunge
into the whole stream of the Moon's evolution; but we prefer to
pass it by, we do not want to plunge into it, we want to remain above
with the good Gods.’ These Angels tore themselves away, at a
certain moment of the Moon's development, from the Mights who
were throwing hindering influence down into the Moon-evolution. But
there were other Angels who said to themselves: ‘We will not
follow our brothers, for if we follow them, development would turn
back, nothing new would be embodied in it.’ Just because of the
existence of these hindering influences, something new was infused
into evolution, from the time of the Moon onwards. Those Beings who
said to themselves: ‘I shall have nothing to do with that which
is going on down there, I shall stay with the Mights who do not wish
to be tainted by anything low,’ these withdrew from the mass of
the Moon and became part of the followers of all that is connected
with the Sun. They would not have anything to do with what was
proceeding on the forsaken Moon, when all the hindering powers held
sway. But the other Beings who plunged down into it, had now to take
into their bodily nature; (which they received on the Moon) all the
hindering influences that existed there. They had to harden
themselves more, as it were, than would otherwise have been the case.
Their bodily sheaths became denser than they would otherwise have
been. In their bodies were implanted the consequences of the deeds of
the Mights, but these deeds were well rooted in the divine plan of
the world — we must keep that well in mind. A further result of
this was, that as the Moon development passed on into that of the
Earth, the whole process was repeated, and those Beings who had
plunged into the full tide of the Moon's development, remained
behind those who would have nothing to do with it, and others
remained still further back, and were attracted by the retrograding
development. The result of all this was, that during the earth
evolution Angel-men existed, who were advanced, and others who were
retrograde.

The advanced Angel-men approached the men of the earth during the
time, when, in Lemuria, they were ripe to receive the germ of the
human ‘I,’ and gave them the choice, as it were, to rise
into the spiritual worlds, then, and not to have anything further to
do with that which since the time of the Moon, had mingled with the
course of the world's development. The Beings who had stayed
behind, whom we call the Luciferic beings, came into touch with the
human astral body — they could not approach the ‘I’
— and grafted into that astral body all the results of the
fight in heaven. While to the Mights was assigned the fight in
heaven, for they were created Gods of Hindrance; the consequences of
their deeds now slipped into the human astral body, and there
signified something else; they signified the possibility of error and
the possibility of evil. Man had now been given the possibility of
error and of evil with the object that he should also have the
possibility of rising above evil and error, through his own strength.

Now consider that such Beings as the Mights, belonging to the second
threefold Hierarchy, could not have had the power to become evil of
their own free will; they had to be ‘adversely-commanded;’
and it was the Beings of the third threefold Hierarchy, and only
those who stand nearest to man, the Angels, who first had it in their
power to follow, or not to follow, the hindering Powers. Those who
did not follow we always find represented in the pictures which
illustrate the victories fought out in heaven. They express what
happened during the Moon development, when Man had progressed as far
as the organisation of his astral body, that is to
the human-animal stage. Then those Angel beings who, so to speak,
remained good, tore themselves away from the course of the
Moon development, they escaped from what was going on down there, on
the Moon. And this picture is represented to the Soul of man in
different ways. It was originally represented in the fight of Michael
with the dragon. You see it also in the symbol of the Bull of Mithra,
where it is specially clearly expressed. It is, of course, not meant
that in doing this these Angel Beings avoided their duty, but they
were put forth as an ideal for the future. ‘These beings’
— it was said — ‘preferred to rise into the
spiritual worlds, whereas you have descended. Other beings came down
with you, those who followed the Powers of Hindrance. You must now
work upon that which you have absorbed in this descent, and carry it
up again into the spiritual world; when you rise again you must
become a Michael, a conqueror of the Bull.’ For every symbol of
this kind is used in a twofold sense.

Thus we see that, because those ‘Mights’ were given
certain orders, men first received the possibility of reaching their
goal by their own strength, a thing which even the highest Seraphim
cannot do of themselves. This is very essential. The Seraphim,
Cherubim and Thrones cannot do otherwise than follow the immediate
impulses given them by the Godhead. The Dominions of the second
threefold hierarchy, too, cannot do otherwise. A certain number of
the Mights were ordered to oppose, so that those Mights also, who, as
it were, threw themselves into the way of development, could not do
otherwise than follow the orders of the Godhead. In what is called
the ‘origin of evil’ they could but perform the will of
the Godhead who, by means of evil, wishes to develop more powerful
good. Now let us descend to those Beings we call the Powers or
Spirits of Form. They also could not have come to this of
themselves. They could not have grown wicked of themselves, nor
could the Spirits of Personality, nor could the Spirits of Fire. For,
when these were men on the Sun, the Mights had not yet been ordered
to oppose, there was as yet no possibility of becoming wicked. The
first who had the possibility of becoming evil were the Angels, for
this could only happen after the development of the Moon. There, from
the Sun to the Moon, the Fight in Heaven took place. A part of the
Angels avoided this possibility, they would not be seduced by the
forces which had to introduce hindrances, they held to the way of the
old Nature. Thus, as far down as the Angels, or part of them, we have
Beings who are absolutely unable to do otherwise than follow the
divine Will. It is essential to remember this.

We now come to two categories of Beings. First those Angels who fling
themselves into that which the Mights produced during the Fight in
Heaven; these are Beings who on account of their later deeds we call
Luciferic. These Beings became united to the human astral bodies
during the Earth-evolution and gave to men the possibility of evil,
and also the possibility of developing through their own free power;
so that in the whole sequence of Hierarchies we have only men; and
some of the Angels, who have the possibility of freedom. In the midst
of the ranks of the Angels the possibility of freedom begins, but it
is first fully developed in men. When man entered the earth, he had
at the beginning to be assailed by the power of the Luciferic
Spirits; they penetrated the human astral body with their force. The
‘I’ was therefore attracted towards those forces, so that
during the Lemurian and Atlantean evolutions, and even later we have
the ‘I’ as in a cloud, as sheathed in a cloud, which was
produced by the assaults of Lucifer. Man was saved from being
overpowered by these forces which penetrated him, only because he was
overshadowed by earlier Beings, because Angels who had remained
above, and also Archangels, came down from the spirit world,
incarnated into special individuals and guided men. And this
continued up to the time when something quite particular took place;
when a Being, whose existence up to then had always been united to
the existence of the Sun, when a Being had progressed so far as to be
able to penetrate, not only the physical, etheric and astral bodies
of men, as former exalted Beings had done, but to penetrate into man
even as far as his Ego.

You remember how I described that in former times higher Beings
descended and ensouled the human physical, etheric and astral bodies.
Now at a special time, an individual arose who was chosen to receive
into him the highest Being — a Being who was at first united to
our Sun existence, but who now entered into, and worked inspiringly
in all the powers of this individuals Ego.

The ‘I’ expresses itself through the blood. Just as the
material substance of blood is the expression of the ‘I’,
so the warmth or fire of the blood, which is the remnant of the
Saturn fire, is the expression of the Ego in the elements. This Being
had to find expression physically in a twofold way; first through
fire. It proclaimed itself to Moses through fire in the burning bush
and in the thunder and lightning on Sinai. For it is the same Being
who later was able to penetrate into the human ‘I’, who
spoke to Moses in the burning bush and in the thunder and lightning
on Sinai. This Being prepared its advent, and appeared in a body in
which blood flowed — in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Through
this, a Sun-Being entered into an earthly individuality. Because the
human ‘Ego’ will be filled ever more and more by the
force which then entered into it, it will become ever more and more
capable of overcoming by its own power the influences which can pull
it down. For the Being who could penetrate into the Ego of man, is of
a different nature from those other Beings who formerly descended to
earth and ensouled physical, etheric and astral bodies. Let us take
the ancient holy Rishis. In their etheric body there was, as we have
seen, the spirit of a high Being; they had inherited that etheric
body from great Atlantean forefathers in whom that exalted Being had
lived. It was passed over to them. They could not follow at all with
their Ego and their astral body, the things which their etheric body
expressed in the moments of inspiration. And so it happened from
epoch to epoch. Men were inspired; it was always as if a power was in
them, something that took strong possession of them. From what man
was capable of in himself — he was withdrawn, in order to
become better. He was inspired by a better Being. This was the case
with all founders of religions. They were ensouled by a Being who was
still high above the Fight in Heaven, so that they were not left
completely to themselves. In the Christ there appeared a Being of a
quite different nature, who did nothing, nothing at all, to force
people to come to Him. And this is essential! If you take the whole
manner in which Christianity was propagated, you will find a living
proof that the Christ during His life did nothing of what was done
later for the propagation of Christianity. Look at the founders of
religion of the ancient times! They are the great Teachers of
humanity, they taught from a certain period in our development, and
their teaching acted on men in an overwhelming way. Look at the
Christ! Does He, fundamentally speaking, work through His teaching?
The man who thinks that His teaching is the most important part, does
not understand the Christ. The Christ did not in the first place act
at all through His teaching, but through that which He did. And the
greatest deed of the Christ was that which ended with death, was His
Death. This is the essential point, that the Christ acted
though a deed, and when this deed spread through the world, He was
not any more physically present. This is the great difference between
the Christ and the other great founders of religions. This difference
is not at all understood as yet, but is essential. You can follow all
the teachings of Christianity, all that is preached as Christianity,
and you can find it all in other religious systems. This cannot be
denied. You can say: ‘All the essential part of Christian
teaching is included in other teachings.’ But has Christianity
been operative in the contents of its teaching? He who at first did
what was most essential towards spreading the essence of
Christianity, did he rely on its teaching? Look at the Apostle Paul!
Was he transformed from a Saul to a Paul by what is written in the
Gospels? He persecuted the followers of Christ Jesus. He persecuted
them until He who died on the Cross appeared to him from the clouds,
until he, Paul, had his own personal occult experience of the fact
that Christ lived. It was the effect of that death, the result of
that deed, which gave the impulse to Paul, this was the cause of it
all. Other religious systems act through their teachings, and their
teachings are the same as in Christianity, but the essential thing in
Christianity is not the teaching, but what happened, the deed. And
this deed is such that it does not act upon man except when man makes
up his mind to let it act upon him, that is, when it can be joined to
the absolutely free character of his ‘Ego.’ For it is not
sufficient that the Christ should be present in the man's
astral body, He must be present in his ‘EGO,’ if He is to
be really understood. And the Ego must decide in complete freedom,
voluntarily, to receive the Christ. This it is with which we are
concerned, this is the point. Just because of this, the human Ego,
when it unites with the Christ, receives into itself a reality, a
divine force which is not a mere teaching. Therefore it can be
asserted a hundred times that the teachings of Christianity are to be
found in other religions, but this is not the question; the fact is
that the essential thing in Christianity is the deed which can
become one's own possession only through free will, through a
voluntary ascent into the higher worlds. Man takes the Christ-force
into himself, because he voluntarily receives it, and no one can
receive it who does not do so voluntarily. This has only been made
possible for man because he has become human upon earth, because he
was called to grow into man on earth.

The fallen Angels who have spread over the earth as Lucifer, are in a
different position. These ought really to have become men on the
Moon; they have remained behind in their development, hence they can
enter the astral body but not the Ego. They are in a peculiar
position, a position which we can only describe graphically, even if
it appears somewhat pedantic. Let us suppose, leaving aside the
physical and etheric body, that the astral body of man during the
Lemurian development was represented by the circle A-B-C, and the Ego
was the circle enclosed (a) in that astral body. The Ego gradually
entered the astral body. What happens now? During the Lemurian
development the Luciferic forces slip on all sides into the man's
astral body and penetrate him with their activities, which find
expression in his lower passions. That through which he succumbs to
error and evil is rooted in his astral body; the Luciferic spirits
have implanted this into him. (If they had not done this he would
never have had the possibility of error and evil, he would have been
lifted up to the place from whence he receives his ‘Ego’,
untouched by all hindering influences.) So it goes on, but the great
leaders protect humanity as far as it is necessary so that it should
not sink too low.

Now comes the Advent of the Christ. Let us take a man who has
voluntarily received the Christ. Christianity is only at its
beginning. But let us take the Ideal; the man's ‘Ego’
has voluntarily, with complete free will, allowed the Christ's
force to flow into him. When the Ego has progressed so far that it
has filled itself with the Christ, then this Christ force irradiates
the astral body also. In that same astral body, into which the
Luciferic powers had formerly implanted their deeds, the Christ power
is now radiating from within outwards. What happens in the future?
Because we have overcome with the help of Christ, and only with His
help, all those human qualities which come from Lucifer, we also, as
men, gradually release the Luciferic powers; and a time will come,
when the Luciferic powers who, during the Moon development, had to
sink downwards into a certain lower evolution for the sake of human
freedom, and who had not themselves the opportunity of experiencing
the Christ force upon earth, these Luciferic powers will experience
the Christ force through man, and through Him they will be released.
Man will save Lucifer, when he takes the Christ force into himself in
the necessary way. And because of this, man will again grow stronger
than he otherwise would have been. For imagine: if man had not
received the Luciferic powers, then the Christ force irradiating him,
would not have encountered the hindrances of the Luciferic forces,
and it would have been impossible for man to progress so far in
wisdom, goodness and in truth as he may do, when he has to overcome
these opposing forces.

Thus in Man, we have a member of the Hierarchies who, as we see, is
very distinct from the other members. We see that man's
position is different from that of the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones,
the Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion and of Form, and different too from
the Spirits of Personality, from the Fire Spirits the Archangels and
from some of the Angels. He can say to himself, looking into the
future: ‘I am called on to search in my own inmost depths, for
that which gives me the impulse for my actions — I do not
receive it from gazing on the Godhead like the Seraphim, but from the
innermost depth of my own being.’

Image 9Click image for large view

The Christ is a God whose action is such that one is not absolutely
forced to follow His Impulse, one follows it only when one
understands it, and in freedom. He is, therefore, the God who never
seeks to hinder the free development of the Ego in this or that
direction. The Christ says in the very highest sense: ‘You will
know the Truth and the Truth will make you free.’

And those beings of the next Hierarchy who had the possibility of
doing evil, the Luciferic beings, these will again be released,
liberated by the power of man.

We therefore see, my dear friends, how in fact the World development
does not simply repeat itself, but that new things enter. For a human
stage such as is lived by men at present was never met with before,
not with the Angels, nor the Archangels, nor the Spirit of
Personality. Man had a completely new mission to fulfil in the world,
the mission we have just characterised. For the sake of this mission
he has descended into the world of the earth. And the Christ came
into the world as a free Helper for him, not as a God acting from
above, but as a first-born among many.

Thus at last, we understand all the dignity and all the importance of
Man as a member of our Hierarchies, and when we glance upwards to all
the nobility and the glory of the higher Hierarchies we say to
ourselves: Be they ever so great, so wise, so good that they never
err from the right path, yet the great mission of man is to bring
Freedom into the world, and with Freedom firstly that which one calls
Love in the true sense of the word. For Love without Freedom s
impossible. A Being who blindly follows an impulse, just follows it;
but for a Being who can also act otherwise, there exists but one
force which he could follow, and that is Love. Freedom and Love are
two poles which belong to each other. If Love is to enter into our
Cosmos, it can happen only through Freedom, that means, only through
Lucifer and those who conquer him; and at the same time through the
Saviour of men, through the Christ. Therefore, the earth is the
Cosmos of Freedom and Love, and therefore, the essential thing is,
that we, without tempting man away from humility, must learn to
reckon the Hierarchies as they ever have been reckoned in Western
esotericism: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; these follow the direct
impulse of the Godhead, having the sight of God. The Spirits of
Wisdom, of Motion, and of Form, (Dominions, Mights, and Powers),
these are as yet so bound to the higher powers that they have to be
given ‘adverse-commands’ in order that evolution should
have the possibility of proceeding further. The Archangels and the
Spirits of Personality also cannot fail, cannot, through their own
free will, sink into evil. Therefore, the spirits of the Hierarchies
next above man were called Messengers and Arch-Messengers to show
that they did not fulfil their own tasks but the tasks of those who
stand immediately above them. But in men a Hierarchy is maturing
which will fulfil its own tasks.

Through the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan developments man will be always
maturing towards accomplishment from out his own Impulses. Even if
to-day he is not yet so far advanced he will attain to it in time.

Which are the Hierarchies? We begin: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; the
Spirits of Wisdom, who exercise their dominion only so far as they
act in the direction of the impulses they receive from the gods; then
the Mights or Spirits of Motion, who have their power only because
they receive it from above; it is the same with Spirits of Form. Were
they to become evil, they could. become so only according to the
decision of Divinity. We come then to the Spirits of Personality, to
the Arch-messengers and messengers and have now descended almost as
far as to men. And what can be said of Man if we place him in the
ranks of the Hierarchies? After the Archangels and Angels, the
Arch-messengers and messengers, we will have to rank the Spirits of
Freedom of Spirits of Love; for this, beginning from above, is the
tenth of the Hierarchies, which although in process of development,
yet belongs to the Hierarchies.

In the universe we have not to do with repetitions, each time that a
cycle is passed, something new is added to the world's
evolution. And to introduce the new element, is always the mission of
that Hierarchy, which is at its human stage of development.

In these lectures we have endeavoured to prove the significance of
Man through the significance of our Cosmos; we have, to a certain
degree at least, questioned ourselves to-day as to the spiritual
significance of man, and we have endeavoured to explain man —
this point in the centre of the universe — in accordance with
the teaching of the Mysteries, by explaining him — the point,
from the circumference!

In doing this our knowledge gains reality; for it is most essential
that all true spiritual knowledge should be a concrete true
knowledge. This means that the knowledge gained through spiritual
science should itself give a direct presentation of the Cosmos and of
the Spiritual Hierarchies.

We stand at the central point of the world. Everything around us
loses significance for us, because we have to say: The external world
of sense cannot solve the riddle for us. It is, as if everything were
to draw together to a centre, and when this is done — then from
the circumference, the solution of this world problem comes back to
us in actual reality, just as is the case with matter itself which is
a reflection and symbol of the spiritual. It draws together in the
centre, disappears there, and then emerges again out of the
circumference. This is a reality. And our knowledge is real when it
thus stands before our eyes like the construction and the process of
the whole cosmos. Then it is no speculation, no fancy, it is born out
of the Cosmos itself. And we must develop the feeling within us:
Wisdom must be an ideal for us, which is born out of the
circumference of the Cosmos, and which fills us with the strongest
force, with force to carry out our own intentions, our own great
world-Ideal, and with this, force also for our ideal for future
humanity.

* TRANSLATOR: Goethe died in 1832; these lectures were
given in 1909.

† TRANSLATOR: Cologne is probably quoted over
because of its nearness to Düsseldorf, and because of its
prominence in German Literature, but most of it is comparatively
modern.